Turkish retailers investing to expand digital presence | Progresiv
In 2018 Alibaba and Amazon entered the Turkish market. The former made a strategic investment in a local ecommerce retailer, while the latter launched a dedicated website for its service in Turkey. This marked a paradigm shift for the online channel in Turkey, encouraging retailers like CarrefourSA and Migros Turk to invest to expand their digital presence. 
In May 2019, ecommerce marketplace retailer, GittiGidiyor, included CarrefourSA on its platform. The latter set up a dedicated page on the marketplace to sell products across 26 dry goods categories. This was the first time the retailer worked with a third-party online retailer. The move allowed it to access a wider pool of online shoppers, which are already registered with GittiGidiyor.
In June 2019, Migros Turk partnered with Turkey's largest ecommerce platform, Trendyol. Like CarrefourSA, this was also the first-time Migros Turk worked with a third-party ecommerce retailer. Migros Turk will expand the supermarket category on Trendynol.com to 25,000 SKUs. This is part of a strategic move by the retailer to develop its digital capabilities and ‘last mile’ delivery solutions, like it did in 2018 when it piloted with instant delivery service Migros Hemen.
In both cases the retailers will be operating on a retail platform that involves the wider retailing ecosystem. Migros Turk and CarrefourSA can use shopper data from their partners to understand shopper habits in the wider retailing environment. For example, Trendyol is a lifestyle retailer that sells a range of non-grocery goods, which will enable Migros Turk to access data that can illustrate shopping habits in non-grocery and its impact on spend in groceries.
GittiGidiyor was acquired by eBay in 2011, and in June 2018 Alibaba bought a stake in Trendynol, as part of an agreement of cooperation. These arrangements are helping two of Turkey’s pure online retailers to accelerate growth in the country and across the region. They are doing so by using eBay’s and Alibaba’s knowledge and experience in the online channel. (retailanalysis.igd.com)
